In Rural England

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30971, 29 January 1966, Page 4

In Rural England

Pennypatch. By Daphne Barclay. Hodder and Stoughton. 155 pp.

Written with quiet distinction, this is one of the better studies of rural England which seem to reach us in increasing quantities from English publishers. Ethel Furbinger had contentedly kept house for her brother Arthur for some years when his sudden marriage impelled her to find a small place of her own rather than accept his suggestion that she remain as part of the new menage. And so, in an anonymous English village (which is really the apotheosis of all English villages) Ethel bought the 300-year-old daub-and-wattle cottage known as Pennypatch—with its elliptical outlines and primitive drainage—and proceeded, by slow stages, to cultivate human relationships. This was not easy at first, though the invaluable Mrs Strong, who had consented to “do” for her, supplied, without malice, details of the bewildering relationships, feuds and eccentricities of those who go to make up a close-knit and isolated pocket of society. Ethel’s obvious willingness to help in local activities, and be friendly where her friendship was shyly solicited, eventually broke down the local reserve, and one of the most attractive features of the book is that it does not superimpose artificial drama on the scene. The elderly, and often inebriate, author, Mr Argus forced no unwelcome attentions upon her, though the two used to meet and share each other’s meals to their mutual pleasure. The women’s institute provided many simple diversions. The book could not be classed as “funny,” though it has many amusing and admirably related incidents. Mr Hopgood, faithful to the memory of a dead wife, and always on hand to help in any difficulty; Lucy, whose love of her cats led her to bury an old favourite privily in the sanctity of the churchyard; and the sensible good-hearted rector and his wife are all accurately and kindly portrayed. Only one complaint could be made, and that is that even a book as short as this is easier to read and assimilate if it has proper chapter divisions instead of a series of paragraphs.

Yes, Henry. By Cecile Joynson. Hammond, Ham-

mond and Co. 189 pp. Cecile Joynson's publishers plaintively comment that she is innocent of the rules of punctuation and spelling—two assertions which she cheerfully endorses. The fact remains that with their necessary emendations and the use of two typing fingers she turns out eminently readable matter. “Yes, Henry” is the third book in which she describes the family doings, her hare-brained schemes, and the reactions to the latter by a husband who has learnt to take anything in the way of surprises, as befits a retired colonel with long fighting experience. In this book Mrs Joynson decided to change the “Stately Home” in which she has brought up her now grown-up family, for a small mill-house in the far west of Devon. This entailed a good deal of whittling down of possessions, and the move included two dogs (one ancient and one modern), two cats, sundry heads of cattle and furniture. Before embarking on it the couple took a short vacation in France, where, among other adventures, they drifted into a brothel by mistake for a modest hotel, where Henry slept like an innocent child, but his wife, after one look at her bed, spent a sleepless night on two chairs, and rose the following morning to share the washbasin with a cockroach. This, and other examples of the unexpected, made their homecoming sheer bliss. The purchase of a modest bus second-hand enabled them to see more of England before using it for goods transport, though as it was white in colour it was constantly mistaken for an ambulance or an ice-cream van. which impeded rapid progress. Once established in their new home they had all the unexpected excitements inseparable from the worst type of English winter, including a wonderful family reunion of eleven for Christmas, (most of whom were marooned for weeks because of being snow-bound,) and constant electricity cuts. The great flood which followed submerged the lower part of their residence by a little matter of four feet, engulfing a good deal of their surplus furniture which they had stored there. An annexe described as a “bungalow,” transported from Scotland in sections, took three months to erect, and cost three times its original estimate.

These episodes, together with a few past reminiscences, flow happily from Mrs Joynson’s two fingers on to her typewriter, and are duly punctuated and respelt by the publishers’ willing slaves, to the joy of Mrs Joynson’s readers.